


Well, I did

by Fafsernir



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: David POV, Gen, Mentions of alcohol, Pre-Canon, Siblings, basically david going out of his way to keep Alexis safe and happy, but he does it, david caring for Alexis, he's unaware of why he keeps doing that, otherwise rated T, the rating is for a single chapter, worried brother
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:22:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29092707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fafsernir/pseuds/Fafsernir
Summary: "You didn't have to worry about me.""Well, I did."David never says it, but he loves his younger sister. He goes out of his way for her to be happy, or to be safe, and he doesn't even know why he does it. But as long as she's having fun he can take it. He can sit at home and worry, he can run to the other side of the world and bring a passport, as long as that means she's okay.Or: Random moments when David helped his sister, with her not often aware of it, if ever. But he was never looking for congratulations when he did it.
Relationships: Alexis Rose & David Rose
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This came out entirely and only because of the car discussion between Alexis and David in Driving Test (3x04), and my love for siblings dynamic. It takes place before the show, each chapters can be read independently, the only common theme is that David's helping his sister. It is chronologically in order, so the first chapter is when they're the youngest. I'm staying very vague on age on purpose, but dropping hints of their approximate age each time. Some will be very short, others a bit longer!  
> I won't add too many tags, but I will put a trigger warning if a chapter needs one, so please look for that in future chapters.  
> Don't forget to hydrate, enjoy, and have a great day! :)

It only took a couple of minutes. It was all it needed, sometimes. A few seconds without being watched, and the worst was happening.

It wasn’t the worst, but for David’s young mind, he had just broken his sister in half even if he was crying way more than she was. She was the one hurting physically, but the thought of having brought harm to his sister was too much. He was flailing his arms, apologizing and trying to help her up. It was all a mess, just because their nanny had stepped away for a minute, and David didn’t want her to come back and see them like this, he didn’t want people to know he had hurt his baby sister.

So he did the best thing he could do. He grabbed Alexis’s hand and he dragged her towards the bathroom, taking something on the way.

“You always have to disinfect,” he said to Alexis, repeating words he had heard. “It’s important.”

“I wanna play, David!” Alexis said, and she really didn’t look bothered at all by the blood on her knee. 

He still put her down on one of the bathrooms’ ground, and searched for things in the cabinet, except he was too small. He grabbed randomly at stuff, and put what he thought he identified as something to disinfect. He knew about disinfecting, he just wasn't sure what did that.

He wiped the tears from his eyes, because he shouldn’t be crying, he should be helping his sister, and he applied what he could on the wound. He cleaned the blood and it calmed him. It gave him something to do, and he could see the damage. He could see it was nothing but a scraped knee. It reassured him to do all this probably wrong ritual. Alexis didn’t complain much, she played with David’s hair as he did his best, and he didn’t mind for once. He didn’t want to snap at her for playing with his hair after what he had done. He hadn’t meant for her to fall.

He looked up to see what she was doing, and he crossed his eyes to be able to look at the finger that was suddenly very close to his face, on his nose,  _ booping his nose _ . 

“Boop!” Alexis said, laughing, and David just sat on the floor, dumbstruck. 

He made a mental note to not let Alexis make that a habit, but at least she was laughing, so he guessed it was alright to let her do that once. 

They went back to playing, and if their nanny saw anything, she didn’t comment on Alexis’s knee. At least, not in front of David.

The next time Alexis hurt herself, she went to David and asked if he could disinfect it. It was not an open wound, she had just bumped her elbow, but he did so nonetheless. It wasn’t as if he was aware of the difference. He had asked what worked as a disinfectant, however, so he at least applied the right products.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter: there's anger as an unsettling (new) feeling for someone, but no physical expression of it.  
> David's in high school in this.

He was taking pretty neat notes when he heard them first talk. He was honestly enjoying the class, unlike some of his classmates, and taking notes was no bother. He liked the class well enough to actively pay attention to it. He didn’t participate much, because he didn’t like that sort of attention, but he still listened.

David could also hear some of his classmates, not enjoying the class as much. Two boys were smirking and whispering not-so-discreetly. The teacher said something to them once, and they stopped briefly. Then they started again, and that was when David heard it.

Alexis. He heard the name of his sister, and he froze, briefly. Probably a coincidence, she wasn’t the only Alexis in the world. He listened to the class with one ear, the gossip with the other.

“Yeah, apparently she kisses anyone,” he heard them whisper, and he stopped paying attention to class instantly when the other one had a too crude remark to that.

David felt warmth in his body that he had never felt before as he heard them. They were clearly talking about his little sister and he wondered what he was feeling. He could almost hear his heart beating against his temple, he felt like he was blushing, but not in a good way. He stirred in his seat, as if unable to sit quietly. His blood was boiling, his hands gripping the edge of the table and his pen. Had he had any strength, he might have broken it.

This was a new feeling, that he understood only when he suddenly stood in the class, and his whole body wanted to launch itself at one of the boys and yell at him.

He was  _ angry _ . Purely and deeply angry, to the point where he, David Rose, wanted to hit something, hit someone. Why was he like that? What was wrong with him?

“Is there a problem?”

“No, sorry, Sir. Leg cramp,” he said quickly, gritting his teeth as he sunk back into his seat.

He felt a wave of… of something he couldn’t identify, either. It was frustration, but also the sudden need to run and find Alexis and make sure she was okay. 

The rest of the hour went by so slowly he thought he would implode. His whole body and mind were a kettle and he was stuck on boiling water but never stopping, reeling in anger but stuck on his seat.

When it rang, he sprung from his chair, and he was out of the school within seconds, his next class be damned. He vaguely was aware of someone calling him. He did not listen or care.

He sprinted. He actually ran to Alexis’s school, which had been his own, but a few years prior. Alexis had complained about going to the same school as David, mostly because it had become “lame”, as she had put it. She would get to change at the end of the year, but her parents didn’t want to bother with a school transfer in the middle of the year, and they said they were looking for the best schools - meaning they had paid someone to do it. She also had complained that it was too close to David’s current school. And it was very close, because it only took him a few minutes to get there, and he was definitely not a runner. 

She finished classes earlier than he did, and he knew she had lied about her schedule so she could be left alone, without having a driver pick her up. She sometimes didn’t even wait for the driver to walk home by herself, or with someone. Or not walk home at all.

David panted as he arrived in front of the school, and scanned the crowd of students filtering out as they finished their day. It was hard to see, his mind still looping on his classmates’ words. How they would try to get to his sister after class, because they wanted to kiss a girl, and she was pretty. How they laughed at her, and called her different names, none of which David felt good about. How they talked about her as if she wasn’t Alexis, as if she wasn’t someone. As if she didn’t have a heart.

When he finally spotted her, he beelined to her, grabbing her arm.

“Ew, David, you’re sweating!” she instantly said, stepping away from him.

“Yeah, just had PE,” he lied, then took her arm again. “I’m craving ice cream. Wanna go?”

“Then go get ice cream,” she simply said, and David’s hand twitched, but he let go of the pressure before she said anything.

“I just need your advice on something.”

“Can’t it wait? I’m busy,” she rolled her eyes.

David pushed back yet another feeling building up in him. He felt sad.

He needed an excuse. He leaned on her, making sure no one was listening as he whispered near her ear. “I think I’m gay,” he said, and that got her attention, as she gasped.

“You know what? Ice cream sounds good,” she eventually said, finally following him.

It was a lie. He didn’t  _ think _ he was gay, he  _ knew _ he was attracted to men. He also wasn’t gay, he also liked women, but it was easier to say that than mumble about how he was attracted by people, and not men or women. 

David came out to Alexis that day. And if he picked her up from school a lot after that, it was only because he needed advice to seduce someone. David had never talked about his attractions before, and he certainly didn’t think he would talk about it to his sister, of all people, but she liked talking about that, and giving him advice, that he then pretended to follow, because most of his attractions were not real. He did mention actual crushes he had, but he didn’t have enough to fill that much conversation, so he lied a bit. 

He knew he couldn’t protect her from everything, he couldn’t do anything about her own classmates, and he couldn’t control her life anyway, but at least he tried to keep older boys away from her. He tried to do his best to shield her from the disgusting things he heard his classmates talk about.

A few years later, Alexis mentioned this period of their lives again when she discovered the word pansexual. David didn’t bother that much with labels, but he found it sweet that she would tell him, that she would think about him. He didn’t tell her, even then, that the only reason he had come out to her was frustration, anger and fear. And maybe a feeling of overprotection. It just wasn’t something they did. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bumped the rating of the fic up for that one because of clear mentions of a blowjob being given. No deep description of it more than very factual.

The ringtone startled David awake. Somewhat. Was he asleep? Vaguely conscious, at least. He was aware of the mouth working his dick, but also aware of how little that was impacting him. It happened, sometimes. The wrong mix of drugs and alcohol, or exhaustion, led to not being able to get hard, or to get to the release, at least. 

How long had that girl been working on his cock and why had she not stopped? Probably for the same reason he had not stopped her. He was high, possibly drunk, definitely sleep deprived. 

“Heeeeello?” He said to his phone, almost falling asleep. 

“Mr. Rose? David Rose?”

“Yeah, 's me,” he mumbled, awkwardly putting a hand on the girl's hair - what was her name already? - to get her to stop, but she didn't get it.

“You're listed as Alexis Rose's emergency contact?”

It was like a wakeup call. It always was, when it came to Alexis. He straightened up as much as he could with someone sucking him off. 

“Fuck, yeah, I'm coming,” David said, and winced when the girl moaned and told him she was ready. “Not for you, hon', let's just… can you… yeah, off, sorry, gotta go. I'll call you, for sure.” He was trying to answer her, but she didn't have a lot of coherent thoughts anyway. David held the phone with his shoulder as he grabbed his clothes. “Sorry, can you tell me more?” he asked, putting on his pants and shoving the girl away to get his sweater from underneath her.

He stumbled out as he acquiesced a lot to the woman talking to him, explaining that it wasn’t anything too serious, that Alexis was just being kept because she was high, and that they needed someone to sign her off, everything had been taken care of, except someone actually coming to get her. David avoided the other occupants in the spacious flat he had crashed in for part of the night, and waved at one of his conscious friends on the way out.

Shame, he was sure he had been having a great time. Maybe he could have gotten to come, at some point. If he hadn't the night before. But it was Alexis, and she needed him to bust her out. Well, to get her and leave her to go have fun again, consequences be damned. It wasn't like she ever had to face the consequences of her actions. David did that. And it was fine. He was the older brother, after all. His parents had made it clear it was his job. At least they had made that one thing clear. Somewhat clear. It hadn’t been  _ that _ clear, but they had once blamed him for something, and it had traumatized young David enough to put on the role of taking care of his sister. It wasn’t like he was doing important things, most of the time. 


	4. Chapter 4

It was a good night. Yes, David felt good. He felt alright. It was the opening night of a new exhibition at his art gallery, and his, huh, person he was currently having sex with was there, and she looked very good. The opening was going great. Everything was okay.

Then why did he not feel that great? There was something nagging at the back of his mind, and he didn’t want to think too much about it, because what if he discovered something he didn’t like?

He had no reason to not feel good. He had money, he had a spacious flat, he didn’t struggle to find someone to have sex with, he was the owner of an art gallery that actually was doing well, his patrons were supporting him, he had friends, and… And he felt wrong. Everything was going well on the surface, and he should feel good inside, but he didn’t. He’d thought running his own place, being responsible and managing something would help, and it had, and it still did, but there was something missing. There always was something missing.

He didn’t know who to text or call to talk about it, and he discarded the thought that maybe this was what was missing. Someone he felt safe enough with to text and talk about something like this. Other than someone literally paid to listen to him and his problems. Therapy could only do so much, after a while. It sure helped, but it didn’t fill him when he had fleeting moments like this one.

He smiled to yet another person and squeezed the somewhat reassuring presence next to him, even if it wasn’t filling the hole in his heart. It was still better than being alone. Being alone was the worst that could happen. It was okay if he wasn’t finding all the right people, at least there were people.

Maybe it was just stress talking. It was probably just that.

“Hi,” he said automatically, then realized he had answered his phone without even thinking when he had seen Alexis calling him. “Sorry, a minute,” he gestured to whoever was speaking to him. Why was he suddenly bad with names and people?

“David! Hi! I figured you weren’t busy,” Alexis said.

“Actually I--”

“So, funny story,” she started, and there was no stopping her. He pursed his lips, listening to Alexis explain with a lot of words something pretty simple: she needed her passport, no she hadn’t taken it because she hadn’t planned on going to Asia initially, and now she needed something-something that he could obviously easily find in her flat, yes, the New York one, and _thanks David, bye!_

He tapped on the back of his phone after Alexis had hung up. She hadn’t left out the part where she would end up in prison if he didn’t help her, and David wondered how she could get into these situations every so often. He wondered how she would react if she just settled in one place for more than a month. But she never did, and she never would, because she just wasn’t that type of person. She needed to travel a lot, and she could.

“Hey, Ann,” he told his manager when he found her. “Have to run a quick errand, can you handle this?”

“David, you still need to talk and--”

“You got this, it’s okay,” he cut her and didn’t let her say anything else. “We’ve been through it together, I know you can do it.” Of course, she could do it. He would do it better because he was the face of the gallery, but Alexis needed him. And he had never missed a call. There was no reason why he would now. Not an opening night at his own gallery with artists he actually cared about and wanted to talk to. There’d be other opportunities.

He was still the older brother, after all. He needed to take care of Alexis because their parents weren’t doing that anyway. Someone had to, in the family. 

A small part of himself knew that he kept doing that because it was one of the only things that felt right. His brain never talked to that part, though, so it never became an actual thought he would have.

In the meantime, he would rush to the other side of the city, he would look for what Alexis needed in her flat, and he would rush back to the consulate and send it to her, spending as much money as he could to speed it to the maximum. In the meantime, he would worry about his sister, and do what he could to help her, without letting her know that she was often interrupting him in moments he couldn’t help her, because it didn’t matter. He would sit at home and worry, and wonder if she got what she had asked for. He would get news from her by refreshing his Instagram and seeing pictures of her, and he wouldn’t expect a text.

He just hoped she was happy.


End file.
